Oklahoma, Big 12 Need a Great Bowl Season to Prove Relevance, Dominance

Oklahoma may have scored first with Sam Bradford winning the Heisman, but they will need to score a big win against Florida if they want pollsters to keep voting them into BCS championship games.

Another big loss and they may get relegated to Big 10 status, where you will never get the benefit of the doubt in the pollsters minds. Really, the team most credited with giving the Big 10 that status, Ohio State, is 4-2 in BCS bowls. Oklahoma is 2-4, though both teams have won it all.

But then again there is the Big 12 automatic bid and the Sooners have a choke-hold on the conference, so they may not need the pollsters to get them into the BCS at large but they will need the pollsters to get them into the Championship games and championships are what the Sooners and Big 12 is all about.

Since the AP poll started in 1936 and college football started having more or less one champion every year, the Big 12 edges out the SEC by one with 16 for the most combined AP then BCS championships, once that debacle started,.

The Sooners have seven championships but that number will be much tougher to improve next year if the Sooners get beaten again and may be impossible for a few years if they get beat handily.

The Big 12 has had an incredible year with four top 13 teams that only lost to one another. While some of their schedules have been weak, others have not and they all have dominated their competition inside or outside of their conferences with the exception of a few games here and there.

Coming into this season the SEC was finally getting their "just deserts" with every reasonable party conceding that they were indeed the best in college football.

But, mix in a below average SEC season and an above average Big 12 season and the SEC is again in a position to have to prove it once more.

People are still skeptical of the Big 12 and the conference needs to go to 5-2 at the very least to prove their dominance. OU, Texas, Tech, and the Picken's project all need to win to state the conferences case profoundly.

Six of the seven teams have winnable games and OU has to find a way to beat Tebow's gators to seal the deal. The conference has to have a big bowl season to prove it is the dominant conference and this year was no fluke.

OU has the most to prove and should do so. Florida may have the best defense OU has seen all year, but OU has the best offense anyone in the history of college football has ever seen.

Vegas and Florida fans are taking the wrong tact with Oklahoma. Tell them, they are the favorites and should win easily and you have the bull by the horns. Tell them, they are the underdogs and you may have a hornets' nest in your hands.